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New Jack City: ‘Twi Hards’ Reshoot Update
There’s no denying it…
The TWILIGHT saga has been hugely successful with its fan base.
How successful?
The first Twilight back in 2008 had nearly $192,800,000 in domestic ticket sales.
One year later NEW MOON shattered the original’s take with a boxoffice total of $296,600,000 plus. Then
ECLIPSE during the summer of 2010 broke the $300 million mark.
And then came last year’s BREAKING DAWN-PART 1. Not only did it garner some of the worst reviews from the critics, but its boxoffice take fell to $281,287,000.
BREAKING DAWN 1 was directed by Bill Condon who’s also doing the franchise’s final chapter—BREAKING DAWN-PART 2—set for release on November 16th.
Read whatever you want into what follows.
Glazer: They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, but Nick Wright is The Man in Sports Radio
A year ago there were some questions from some of you oldsters about would Nick Wright make or even to be on the air in a year or two?
Remember?
I wrote several times, not only would he be on the air in KC – that is if ESPN didn’t grab him – he’d be THE MAN, in local sports talk radio. And, guess what?
Step aside, naysayers because, a year later, Nick is THE sports guy in Kansas City, no argument.
Hearne: Yeah We’re Fat, So Rank Us
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Enough with the phony surveys..
A funny thing happened during yesterday’s breakfast interview/meeting with Mancow in Chicago. In what came across quite innocently – at least at first – Mancow called out the women in Kansas City for being overweight.
Fat, actually.
"Are you shocked by how big the women in Kansas City are?" he mused. "They are so huge."
Hey, it’s not like this comes as a news flash or anything.
The Cowtown’s been on the receiving end of countless "Fattest Cities" surveys over the years.
Hearne: My Breakfast with Mancow; Death of Radio, Fat Girls, Andrew Breitbart’s Death & $4.69 Gas
You know you’re in Chicago when the drive in from the outskirts is 10 times worse than the entire rest of the trip…
Turns out there’s something to be said about quality of life and all that falderol we take for granted in KC. Somebody remind me to check out the train accommodations here next time. Speaking of checking something out, get a load of the gas prices here, fellow flyover types. My nine gallon Fiat fillup ran an eyebrow arching $43.00 @ $4.69 a gallon.
Caught up to KC radio export Erich "Mancow" Muller for breakfast at Chicago’s ritzy new Palomar hotel downtown. The Cow was hanging there with wife Sandy and their twin daughters for Spring Break.
A few hightlights….
Starbeams: The Top 5 Signs You’re a Royals Fan
THE TOP 5 SIGNS YOU’RE A ROYALS FAN:
#5. You’re legally blind but you can still read the scoreboard.
#4. Every time you pass a fountain you stop and look for the other team’s ball.
#3. You make fun of Cardinals fans for wearing camouflage while you’re wearing powder blue.
Leftridge: Yost Must Keep Broxton in Check, Even if Broxton Threatens to “Yokozuna” Him
It’s easy to overreact. It’s easy to look at the Kansas City Royals’ just-concluded West-coast trip and think that the sky is falling. It’s both upsetting for the fans and demoralizing for the players to leave Wednesday evening from Oakland thinking that the team should easily be 4-2 instead of 3-3.
Game 3 against the A’s was in the bag. After taking the lead in the 12th, the Royals watched their dream slip away like so much bacon-wrapped-sausage sliding down Broxton’s gullet.
Closer Jonathan Broxton, that is.
When the behemoth took the mound in the bottom of the inning, however, it didn’t feel good. Perhaps I’m conditioned by so many nervous hours spent watching Mike MacDougal’s hat fly across the infield as he uncorked a wild pitch in the bottom of the 9th; maybe I’m still troubled by nightmares of an aging, incompetent Roberto Hernandez laboring his way through yet another blown save. Whatever the case, it felt blown as soon as it began.
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘The Three Stooges’—A Knuckleheaded Misadventure That Works—for GUYS
Let’s be completely upfront…
There are chick flicks that lend themselves well to Girls Night Out movies, like next week’s THE LUCKY ONE with Zac Efron from the pen of The Notebook’s Nicholas Sparks.
THE THREE STOOGES doesn’t fall into that catagory.
Matter of fact, I would suggest a Boy’s Night Out with a couple drinks and a cigar before meeting up with Larry, Moe & Curly at the megaplex.
It’s a guy thing.
Starbeams: Santorum’s Titanic, Christie’s Belly Blast, KCPD’s Donuts & Royals Boulevard Bullpen
Rick Santorum drops his bid to become Republican nominee on the anniversary of the Titanic leaving Southampton. Coincidence?
*******
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said the U.S. is full of people "sitting on the couch, waiting for their next government check."
Then his belt buckle exploded and injured a reporter on the front row….who went home and waited for a government check.
Sounds Good: Leftover Salmon@Liberty Hall, Leon Russell@Knuckleheads, Quixotic@Midland, Cults@Granada, School of Seven Bells@RiotRoom
I know I’ve said it before, but this week’s Sounds Good has something for everyone. 
OK, maybe not the sluts and motorheads. But the jocks, geeks, dweebies and dickheads are all covered.
First up is a nice happy Thursday night show in Lawrence to get your weekend off right, featuring a storied band that plays what the kids call "Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass." They’ve been on an extended break since the death of their banjo player and founding member Mark Vann at way too young an age – 39.
But they’re back and rejuvinated with a youngster, Andy Thorn, filling in admirably and providing some new life to the band….
Glazer: America’s Insatiable Appetite for (Sports) Destruction
Are they witch hunts half the time? Of course…
There are so many sports scandals in the news today, you can’t keep up. They’re daily – hourly at times. Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino got dumped after totally rebuilding the football program. Petrino took his team to a Cotton Bowl win over K-State and a No. 5 ranking last season.
So the guy has a 25 year-old hottie on the back of his bike, crashes, gets cut up, tries to shut up the embarrassment, can’t, gets FIRED. Yes, he was cheating on his wife. Yes, 10 or 20 years ago this would have been swept under the carpet with no press or a watered down version of the story coming out. But today, it’s big News. Why?
Because we’re hungry to see the BIG DOGS FALL.
Hearne: Steamboat Arabia Puts Kibosh on ‘Buzz Under the Stars’ @ City Market
Talk about buzzkills…
In one of the more oblique press releases ever penned, the Kansas City City Market wrote late yesterday:
"The City Market is interested in the success of our tenants thus does not anticipate booking a 2012 concert series as a response to a concern from the Steamboat Arabia Museum that concerts have and continue to put their artifacts at risk. Investigation of this matter is a priority at this time.
"The past five years the City Market has partnered with AEG Live and Entercom Radio for the “Buzz Under the Stars” Concert Series hosting artists such as Mumford & Sons, The Killers, Incubus, Death Cab for Cutie and Offspring. This great partnership has brought more than 120,000 music enthusiasts to enjoy the atmosphere of concerts with downtown Kansas City, Missouri as its backdrop. We thank you for your patronage."
Talk about carefully-worded- "does not anticipate" – how could it get any vaguer?
Hearne: Glen Campbell Farewell Tour Erupts in Sad Controversy, Headed to KC April 26th
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Not that long ago the celebrity gossip on Glen Campbell was pretty generic…
He was still raising heck and garnering typical big star headlines like, "Glen Campbell Given Jail Time" in June 2004.
Or, "Country singer Glen Campbell issued an apology to his family and fans Tuesday after being arrested Monday evening on charges of driving drunk and kicking a police officer," in a 2003 CNN story. "Campbell, 67, spent several hours in a Maricopa County jail cell Monday evening on drunken driving, hit and run and assault charges after a series of incidents police say started with a minor car wreck near his home in Phoenix."
Believe it or not, those were the "good old days."
More recently the news has turned sadder, much sadder.
"A nasty family feud has erupted over music legend GLEN CAMPBELL’s $50 million fortune," read a headline in the National Enquirer last October.
Donnelly: Quixotic Fusion Scheduled to Freakout the Midland this Saturday
After an epic headlining set by My Morning Jacket at 2011’s Wakarusa Festival, I stumbled my way onto a local wine booth.
The wine guy was super friendly, offering liberal tastes to parched campers. He explained that Arkansas wine is pretty good, and that the market is up and coming.
It all tasted great to me, and so I lingered to get a photo and the guy’s info for inclusion in my story. As I was telling him about KC Confidential, I think a bomb went off somewhere behind me. Except instead of fleeing, people were running toward the furious sound.
I squinted through the starlight. Is that stage on fire?
Turns out, it kind of was.
Hearne: Missie B’s Lays Down the Skinny on Rumored Move to Westport
Close but no drag bar…
Late last week Craig Glazer was told by radio station staffers at Wilks Broadcasting in Manor Square that Missie B’s was taking over the space America’s Pub vacated in January. Glazer had earlier confirmed that Missie B’s had looked at the Pub and other locations in Westport, so after being told by the radio station dudes to check out the workers hard at it in the club, he did and they copped to being with Missie B’s.
They were all wrong, but there’s more to the story.
New Jack City: Hot Summer Box Office—The Race Is On!
When it comes to insecurity, Hollywood usually takes the cake…
Huge production and marketing costs have the studios relying ever more on so-called "tracking services" that forecast what films might open to in terms of ticket sales on specific debut weekends, as well as attempting to predict their "all in" boxoffice take.
With millions of dollars at stake and ongoing ad-pub repositioning right up to the film’s release date, Hollywood has spawned a sizeable sideline industry that delivers sophisticated statistical advance information that once was the domain of fortune tellers.
The 18 week long summer movie period beginning nowadays with the first weekend of May and running through Labor Day can easily make or break a studio’s fortunes.
Glazer: They Could. Go All. The Way. This Year’s Royals Are the Real Deal!
Royals fans. FINALLY. No more waiting…
This is a post season team RIGHT NOW. The Royals have a ferocious hitting attack,maybe the best in baseball. They will win closer to 90 games than 80. Eric Hosmer is an MVP candidate. He could well hit plus 40 homers. A first for any KC baseball player.
Look for a .320 average plus 120 RBI’s and 42 home runs from baseball’s NEW KING OF SWAT ERIC HOSMER.
More good news: The Royals have at least 5, count them 5, guys who can all hit more than 20 dingers this year. Hosmer, Alex Gordon,Mike Moustakas, Billy Butler and Jeff Francoeur. Oh yeah. The new guy Lorenzo Cain ain’t no punk…18 homers for him as well. This is a tough, tough batting lineup.
Allow me to be the first to say it; BEST OFFENSE THE ROYALS HAVE EVER HAD.
Hearne: Where’s the Easter Bunny When You Need Him? Mayor’s Son & The Westport Killing
News coverage can get a little dicey – even high profile murders in Westport – when they go down Easter Sunday…
So it was that lots of local news organizations had a puzzle piece here, a puzzle piece there concerning the late night shooting of Kendrick L. Williams early Sunday morning. It appears Williams was a 22 year-old rapper who had performed that night at Ink Magazine‘s Middle Of The Map music fest in Westport.
Ink is owned by the Kansas City Star – which used its weekly Preview entertainment insert to plug the fest to Geritol-sipping readers.
And kudos to the Star for doing damage control up front by owning up to the fact that its fest appeared to be at the center of the confusion. As well as for tracking down KC Mayor Sly James’s double talking spokesdude about a rampant rumor that the mayor’s trouble magnet son Kyle James might have been in play at the scene of the crime.
Here’s what the Star reported:
Donnelly: Standing Room Crowd Watches Sporting Dismantle Donovan’s LA Galaxy
The sun finally poked through the clouds Saturday right before kickoff of the standing-room-only Sporting KC-LA Galaxy game which, to the dismay of many females in attendance, did not feature David Beckham.
In fact, Beckham didn’t even make the trip to KC as he is currently sidelined with an injury.
Straight away KC was looking to get forward, creating a half chance in the first minute. It became apparent quickly that LA, just like Chivas and Dallas, have taken notice of physical KC striker CJ Sapong and decided to do the only thing they can to slow him down.
Namely, grab him, hold him, and generally foul the shit out of him early and often.
Glazer: Scribe Does Vegas, Lives to Tell the Story
Two weeks ago I visited one of my favorite haunts, Las Vegas...
Naturally, I took Black Barbie (Monique) with me and we stayed at the Bellagio. The good news is Vegas was packed – I mean wall to wall. It was Final Four weekend, actually, the Elite Eight. More important it was Spring Break and Arizona State, University of Arizona, UCLA and tons of other school’s hipsters were all over the place.
You had to wait in line for almost everything, even in the coffee shops.
Sure the ‘event’ weekend upped the crowd sizes, but the trusty cab drivers all told me, "Things are on the upswing…big time." I was told weekdays had even picked up quite a bit. All the major hotels were sold out. The shows were sold out. Hey, I stayed through Monday and even Sunday day and night was packed.
Last time I was there was in Chiefs season on a Sunday, and even with the NFL it was very slow.
Is this a good sign for the U.S. economy? I think it is.
Leftridge: 10 Enlightening Observations From Opening Day
Ah, Opening Day.
For baseball fans, it’s like Christmas in April. Well… Christmas Part Two: Santa’s Revenge. I mean honestly, do you know a lot of Muslim baseball fans? I can only count like, six or seven, certainly no more than eight, so it goes without saying that most baseball fans also celebrate Christmas. But I digress.
It signals the end of a long, harsh winter (well, except for this freakishly warm previous one), a time to cast aside prior failure and set shoot for the stars (unless you’re in the AL Central, and then it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Detroit Tigers will be taking it all, and with frightful ease).
Alright, alright… so for most Kansas City baseball fans, it’s “same shit, different day.” But it’s all about watching the team grow and flourish in incremental, yet important ways. Starters going a bit deeper under the tutelage of new pitching coach Dave Eiland. The maturation of principal parties like Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain. The solidification of last year’s mostly-impressive bullpen.
